Chern-Simons-Ghost Theories and de Sitter Space

Abstract: We explore Chern-Simons theories coupled to fundamental ghost-like matter in the large $N$ limit at 't Hooft coupling $\lambda$. These theories have been conjectured to be holographically dual to parity-violating, asymptotically dS$_4$ universes with a tower of light higher-spin fields. On $\mathbb{R}^3$, to all orders in large-$N$ perturbation theory, we show that Chern-Simons-ghost theories are related to ordinary Chern-Simons-matter theories by mapping $N \rightarrow - N$ and keeping $\lambda$ fixed. Consequently, the bosonization duality of ordinary Chern-Simons-matter theories extends to a bosonization duality of Chern-Simons-ghost theories on $\mathbb R^3$. On $S^1 \times S^2$, in the small-$S^1$ limit, neither $N \rightarrow -N$ nor bosonization hold, as we show by extensively studying large-$N$ saddles of the theories with both ghost and ordinary matter. The partition functions we compute along the way can be viewed as pieces of the late-time Hartle-Hawking wavefunction for the bulk dS$_4$ gravity theories.